Erdogan has sown seeds of opposition

Youth, primarily young women and including many who voted to re-elect Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are protesting his one-man, one-party style of governance.

Youth, primarily young women and including many who voted to re-elect Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are protesting his one-man, one-party style of governance.

Photo: Burak Kara, Getty Images

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Erdogan wants to rule Turkey until its 2023 centennial.

Erdogan wants to rule Turkey until its 2023 centennial.

Photo: Associated Press

Erdogan has sown seeds of opposition

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It all started with an attempted uprooting of trees to make way for a shopping center and housing complex in downtown Istanbul. In a city where urban sprawl devours everything, some people decided to make a stand to prevent one of the two remaining green areas of central Istanbul from this fate. Then the police intervened in a rather brutal fashion. The police's disproportionate intervention, in turn, triggered the enormous upheavals in Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey that have surprised and embarrassed the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

It was a surprise because Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, AKP, a conservative and pious party, had won three elections in a row, each time increasing its share of the vote, and seeming as if it could do no wrong. Erdogan had tamed the unruly military hierarchy and oversaw the longest and most successful economic boom of modern Turkish history. Incomes have risen, exports have mushroomed and government for the first time appeared to be delivering necessary services, from health to education, to the average citizen.

Moreover, Erdogan had proved to be a shrewd and occasionally bold politician. He had gathered - and continues to enjoy - broad popular support because of his stewardship of the economy, which proved resilient even under the stress of the 2008 worldwide economic crisis. He had demonstrated boldness by attempting to peacefully resolve the Kurdish problem, Turkey's Achilles' heel, by initiating a dialogue with the PKK, the Kurdistan Worker's Party. The PKK had been fighting the central government for almost 20 years, with no end insight. What, then, were the reasons for the waves of protest?

First, this is not a Turkish spring; the demonstrators were not interested in overthrowing Erdogan or the Turkish political system. Turkey is not Tunisia; a country once ruled single-handedly by Zein Bel Ali, who operated a ruthless police state that offered fertile ground for the Arab spring. The issue in Turkey is style of governance.

After 10 years in power, the ruling AKP and Erdogan have established a de facto one-party, one-man state. Their achievements notwithstanding, an element of fatigue is setting in among part of the population, especially the young, with the government's preachy and culturally intrusive style. Erdogan's speeches have been extremely divisive and his minions and press outlets have heaped scorn on protesters as nothing more than tools of foreigners - Westerners in particular.

The opposition's ineffectiveness - the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party, CHP, is nothing more than a conclave of chatterers - has meant that the AKP knows it will win every election for the foreseeable future. Erdogan plans to run for the presidency next year, assuring him almost another two years, and he hopes to remain in power until 2023, the centennial of modern Turkey. For many, the prospect of a total 20 years of one-man rule is increasingly difficult to fathom. Without an effective opposition, other than Kurdish nationalists, taking to the street appeared to be the only option.

There is fatigue on the government side as well. Having won every battle he has faced, Erdogan assumes that his desires are the nation's. He acts as if he owns the country and its institutions. He talks of "his governor," "his policeman," "his general" and "his people" in a manner hitherto unseen in Turkey. No one in his entourage dares to challenge him. Finally, for many women - and so many of the demonstrators were women, both on the front lines and as a percentage of the crowd - the character of the government is overbearing. His entourage, cabinet and advisers are exclusively men and, despite its women's branches, the AKP rhetoric is thoroughly patriarchal.

When "his" police embarked upon a brutal assault on demonstrators - in the age of social media little can be hidden - including tear gassing and pepper spraying anyone they could lay their hands on and water hosing the interiors of hospitals whose staff dared to treat the injured protesters, Erdogan won the enmity of a group of people. While still a minority, these are the people who will populate the civil society groups in the future and continue to challenge the government. Unquestionably, in the long run, this is the silver lining of the protests. In the absence of an effective opposition, the young will emerge as the new opposition.

In the meantime, the Turkish government will weather the storm, though wounded and with a sizable chink in Erdogan's armor. At home and abroad, more pressing questions are being raised about his and his party's ability to regain its former effective and all-encompassing style: Both are in need of rethinking.

Henri J. Barkey is a professor of international relations at Lehigh University.